<iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-K3L4M3" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">

Ancient and modern

While shepherds watched, civilisation was born

If you want to understand the worlds of Homer and the Bible, you must start with farming

14 December 2013

9:00 AM

14 December 2013

9:00 AM

‘And lo, there were shepherds in the fields, watching over their flocks by night
 
Reading recently that it was the 25th anniversary of the invention of the world wide web, I reflected (yet again) on the difficulty of creating in any of our minds that sense of the world as experienced by the Greeks and Romans.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Black Friday sale

Subscribe today and get 10 weeks of The Spectator Australia for just $1

  • Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app
  • The weekly edition on the Spectator Australia app
  • Spectator podcasts and newsletters
  • Full access to spectator.co.uk
Or

Unlock this article

REGISTER

You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it. Try your first month for free, then just $2 a week for the remainder of your first year.


Comments

Black Friday sale

Subscribe today and get 10 weeks of The Spectator Australia for just $1

Already a subscriber? Log in

Close